


Stressed-Out Kids

by TransDucks



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Background Daisy Duck, Background Scrooge McDuck, Coming Out, Gen, Trans Character, Trans Donald Duck, Trans Male Character, Transgender, the kids in the comics that make fun of him are awful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-08-06 00:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16378055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TransDucks/pseuds/TransDucks
Summary: It took a long time before the world learned about Donald Duck, almost as long as it took his family. Luckily for him, sometimes the worst cousin is your best support, and the rest of his family isn't as bad as he thought.





	1. Gladstone's Party

**Author's Note:**

> There weren't enough Trans Donald fics and I was desperate.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donald has been hiding himself from his friends and family, but he finally takes the first step at coming out.

Donald had always felt something was off when he was young. Getting called “she” and “her” felt wrong sometimes and it was almost like a punch to the gut when he was called by any other name. He wasn’t like his twin sister, Della; although he didn’t mind the dresses and skirts when he was playing pretend, he hated them when he had to wear them any other time. Growing up in the rural area outside of Duckburg didn’t give him any clue into why he felt this way, though, and it wasn’t like he could ask any of his teachers or classmates. The other kids made fun of him already for living in the country.

It wasn’t until he and Della came under the care of his uncle, Scrooge McDuck, that he was able to get ahold of any information on himself. Turns out, he wasn’t the only person in the McDuck line that had felt this way, and the library wasn’t that far from Uncle Scrooge’s estate. He figured it would be better to use the public computers then to ask the librarian or Scrooge if they “have any books on feeling like the wrong gender,” because he did not want to explain himself. He wasn’t even sure if he could if he did run into that problem.

His soul-searching wasn’t making his high school years any easier. Unable to make fun of them for where they lived anymore, kids moved to calling them the “Butch Sisters” and some other, nastier words that he didn’t want to think about. Della didn’t seem to mind, though; this just meant she could be more open with her crush on Daisy Duck, the most popular girl in school. The only good thing that came to him was that kids thought saying he was “basically a guy” was an insult to him, so they said it a lot.

He knew he should tell Della about what he was going through at some point, but any time they weren’t at school, they were adventuring with their Uncle Scrooge, and he was always so angry at them both by the time he could talk to her that he never did. He even started convincing himself that there wasn’t any point to it; it wasn’t like Scrooge was going to pay for any of his medical stuff anyways, and Della already joking called him “bro”. He could just live with that, never telling anyone how he felt. 

That didn’t stop him from introducing himself to strangers as Donald Duck, nephew of Scrooge McDuck. He saw it as a blessing that ducks in his family typically had the same body type, regardless of gender. He was constantly worried that one of these people would talk to the rest of his family about him and then not only would Scrooge and Della know, the stranger would as well. He dreaded that day and was glad that Scrooge tended to keep to himself. He didn’t take his cousins into account, though, and that’s how he ended up in the situation where he was now.

Donald never thought Gladstone would be the first person he would come out to. His lucky cousin was insufferable, and they were always at each other's throats. That’s why he was surprised when Gladstone didn’t comment on the partygoer laughing about how funny his cousin “Donald” was after he tripped for the umpteenth time. This would have been the perfect time to ruin his life like he always did. Instead, Gladstone had asked if he could talk with Donald alone for a moment and he ushered him outside.

The silence was deafening. They were both waiting for the other to start. Donald didn’t know what to say. Does he play it off as a joke, or should he just tell Gladstone everything? He hadn’t been planning on telling him. Finally, Gladstone breaks the silence, the most serious Donald had ever heard him. “Sooo…. Would you like me to start calling you Donald?” 

This wasn’t what Donald was expecting. Every scenario he had come up with resulted in his family shunning him and treating him like a freak. But here was Gladstone, the family member he trusted the least, asking him if he wanted to be called by the name he had chosen without asking why he was telling people he was a guy. Maybe Donald was wrong about him. Didn’t make him any less of a jerk, though.

“Yeah, I would like that a lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I mentioned that Donald still liked dresses when playing pretend because he does drag a lot in the comics and I love it. Also, I would like to point out that I don't blame Della for not noticing what was happening with Donald, but someone needs to teach Scrooge that just because he became a better person from having a hard life, it doesn't mean he should give Donald a hard one. All he did was give him depression.


	2. Della Hears A Rumor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Della hangs out with Daisy's friends during lunch since Daisy has a different lunch than her and hears what she thinks is a fake rumor about Donald.

It was the lunch period, and Della was starving. She was carrying her tray over to the table she sat at with Daisy’s friends when she heard giggling erupt from it. She normally wouldn’t think anything of it, but it stopped when she approached the table and none of them would look at her.

She sat her tray down. “So, what were you talking about?” she asked, staring them down. Della knew that when something like this happened, her sister was the main topic of conversation. It never took long to get the info out for the table, so she found it a bit frustrating that they would even try to act as nothing had happened.

One girl finally spoke up. “Well, Katie had gone to that party last night, the one that Gladstone threw and you didn’t go to because you were off somewhere with your Uncle? And she overheard your sister telling people her name was Donald!” The girl laughed nervously. “I knew your sister was super weird, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d think she thinks she’s a boy or something.”

Della looked at her, unamused. “Look, it's one thing to laugh at all the clumsy things she does, but it’s another to spread rumors about her. That could’ve been anyone at the party, and because of how big my family is, for all you know that could’ve been one of my cousins.”

She ate quickly after that, noticing that they refused to look at her. Della got up to dump her tray. “Stuff like this is why I can’t understand why Daisy would hang out with people like you. You should know that stories about “something that happened at a party” are usually fake. My sister is a girl and she has never said or done anything to imply otherwise.”

The rest of the day went by quickly and Della didn’t think about the conversation that had happened at lunch. It wasn’t until she had gotten on the bus and sat beside her sister that she even remembered it. She wanted to tell her about what had happened, but she knew she would wait until they were at the mansion so the rumor didn’t spread any farther than it already had.

“Soooooo… anything interesting happen at school today?” Della asked. She felt a bit guilty when she saw her sister flinch. She guessed that meant she had also heard about the rumor going around. There was a shrug. “Oh, uh, nothing much. Just classes, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, classes.” They were both silent for a few stops. Della opened her mouth to speak, but her sister beat her to it. “Hey, there’s something I wanna talk about when we get home if that’s okay? I’d like to wait until we get to our room because I don’t want Uncle Scrooge overhearing.”

Della nodded, smiling. “Of course! You can talk to me about anything; we’re sisters after all.” She noticed a frown appear, but she didn’t know if it was because of something she said, or something else. The bus stopped by the mansion, and the two of them got off silently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda felt uncomfortable writing this part??? I managed to get away without having to make a deadname for Donald, because I hate even discussing deadnames, but I couldn't get away with Della not calling him her sister. If I'm gonna project myself on this good, good duck, I can't let him have a completely nice time coming out.


	3. The Hardest Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donald comes out to Della

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uuhhhhhh so the person who was supposed to read through this has been busy the past week so if there’s anything that needs changed just let me know in the comments!

Donald had hoped that after his talk with Gladstone his life would start turning around, but school the next day turned his life into a living nightmare. Someone from his school had overheard him and put two and two together, so now he was basically out to everyone. To make matters worse, most of his peers thought of it as a joke, and even the comments from people who didn’t believe it stung.

He knew he needed to come out to Della properly as soon as he could, because who knew what she had heard and what she thought of it. Hearing her call him her sister, though, made him second guess himself. Maybe she didn’t hear anything at all. Maybe he could just deal with everything until they graduated and then he could just go off to the Navy and never explain himself.

He had already told Della he needed to talk to her, though, so Donald knew there was no way he could get out of it. That would make her suspicious and she might even try to bring it up around Uncle Scrooge and that would be the end of him. So when he and Della reached the mansion, he loudly announced to anyone who may or may not care that he was going to do his homework in their room and that he would be there for awhile.

Donald rushed up the stairs, not checking to see if Della was following him. It would actually be better if she didn’t; maybe he could get a good cry in before telling Della everything. His emotions were rollercoastering, and not in the way he was used to. Reaching their bedroom, though, he decided it would be better to get it over with and finally checked behind him. Della was following him, albeit at a slower pace, with signs of worry starting to form on her face.

It finally hit him that he was doing this. He was going to tell his sister that he was a boy and ask her to call him Donald after she’d known him by a different name for 17 years. Even after all of the death-defying adventures they’d been on, this felt like it was going to be the most terrifying thing he was ever going to do. He could probably handle Uncle Scrooge taking it badly after a while, but he could never handle rejection from Della. The thought caused him to finally open the door so he could lean on it to keep him up. “Would it be weird to invite you into your own room?” he asked nervously.

Della’s look of concern grew and Donald was mentally hitting himself for asking such a question. “Yeah, it's very weird. You don’t normally act like this, and I’m starting to wonder if the thing you wanted to tell me is that Gyro built a machine that killed someone and you helped him hide the body,” she said, entering the room. Donald knew she was trying to lighten the mood a bit, but it wasn’t working.

Donald closed the door behind them but stayed in front of the door, ready to run away if things went badly. He tried to calm his breath as Della took a seat on her bed. She looked at him patiently, which Donald knew was something she struggled to do. It was now or never. He let out a sigh and wrung his hands before talking.

“So, uh,” he started, not really knowing what to say. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, for years really, and I know I haven’t really shown anything differently, but,” he stopped and shook his head. “No, that’s not right. So, um, you probably heard some stuff at school today and obviously people say things about me a lot that aren’t true. What people were saying today though was a bit more extreme than normal, though, and I thought you should hear it from me that it…” He balled his hands up and started crying before yelling. “I’m a boy, okay! I’m a boy and you can hate me all you want but I can’t stand being seen as your sister when I’m not!’

He grabbed the doorknob to throw it open when he felt his sister’s arms around him. He froze up before Della started whispering. “Oh bro, I could never hate you for too long, and never for something like this. I love you, okay?”

Donald started crying louder as she held him. It was such a relief his sister still loved him that all the stress from the years of not telling her came gushing out. The two of them just stood there, not saying anything but speaking things louder than words. Donald knew that his sister loved him no matter who he was, and Della knew that she had a brother, not a sister, that she would do anything for.

And they knew everything was going to be okay.


End file.
